


To Be the Bad Man, the Sad Man, Behind Brown Eyes

by Innwich



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Self-Hatred, Spoilers for season 2 episode 7, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28044585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: Post Chapter 15 The Believer.After the mission on Morak, Boba Fett had a heart-to-heart with the Mandalorian, who had come to his cockpit uninvited.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Boba Fett
Comments: 8
Kudos: 234





	To Be the Bad Man, the Sad Man, Behind Brown Eyes

“Strap in. We’re entering hyperspace,” Boba announced over _Slave I_ ’s comm system.

He braced himself in the pilot seat as he switched on the hyperdrive. The hyperdrive engine whirred to life. The reinforced walls of the cockpit shook with the entire ship. _Slave I_ accelerated through real space, and then, with a rumbling jolt, jumped into hyperspace.

The coordinates of Moff Gideon’s cruiser had been transferred from the data stick to the piloting system. The only view outside the cockpit canopy was the blinding streaks of light given off by celestial bodies nearby. The view had been mesmerizing when he had laid eyes on it for the first time in this cockpit as a child, and it continued to enthrall him now. An eternity could be found in these warped lights.

Boba let the autopilot take over. All that was left to be done was to ensure that the ship stay on course. He would take off his helmet and get some shut-eye, if not for the unwelcome presence in the co-pilot seat to his left. The Mandalorian had invited himself into the cockpit under the flimsy pretext of checking that Boba had entered the coordinates correctly, and had been staying here long after takeoff. The Mandalorian wasn’t even looking at the piloting system. He was staring straight ahead out of the cockpit canopy.

“You’re in my seat,” Boba said.

The Mandalorian turned his visor towards Boba, as if he just realized that Boba was there. He didn’t get up from the seat. “Shand was resting in the passenger hold when I left her. She won’t be joining us soon.”

That seat wasn’t Fennec’s either. Fennec sat in the passenger seat on his right whenever she was in the cockpit. The co-pilot seat had belonged to Boba since his conception in a birthing pod on Kamino. His father had strapped him into the seat on the day that Taun We had confirmed that he had been old enough for intergalactic travel, and taken him on his first joyride around the Kamino system. The upholstery of the seats in the cockpit was one of the few things aboard _Slave I_ that Boba had kept unchanged over the years.

Boba didn’t bother to explain himself and his admittedly obsessive attachment to his ship. He said instead, “What happened on Morak?”

“Pirates and Imps happened,” the Mandalorian said shortly.

“There was something else. Something rattled you,” Boba said.

“What makes you think that?” the Mandalorian said.

“You’ve been in my cockpit since takeoff, which is uncustomary for you. You prefer the passenger hold and the company of your friend. I presume you have a reason for seeking me out,” Boba said.

The Mandalorian sighed heavily. The suffering sound was muffled by the modulator in his helmet. “I don’t seek your counsel. Just some peace and quiet.”

The Mandalorian hadn’t been bothered by the non-stop bickering between the sharpshooter and the New Republic marshal on the ride to Morak. Unsettled by the Mandalorian’s apathy towards their argument, the sharpshooter had accused the Mandalorian of having fallen asleep under the helmet. With the sharpshooter gone, the Mandalorain should have no trouble finding peace in the passenger hold.

“Does it have something to do with your aversion to taking off your helmet?” Boba said.

The Mandalorian’s head snapped towards him so quickly that it was a wonder the Mandalorian didn’t get whiplash. “How do you know that?”

“The sharpshooter made a big fuss about it before the mission. He claimed it would hamper you in the Imperial base,” Boba reminded him.

“He – wasn’t wrong.” The Mandalorian faltered.

The Mandalorian had never taken off his helmet in Boba’s presence. Boba had assumed that the Mandalorian was wary of him. After all, Boba had threatened to kill his child on Tython. Mandalorians weren’t known to forgive and forget easily. Boba and the Mandalorian had only be brought together by their mercenary nature and honor code. But the sharpshooter’s gripes had made Boba question his initial assessment of the Mandalorian. There was more to the Mandalorian’s unwillingness to uncover his face than distrust.

Boba spun his seat around so he was facing the Mandalorian fully. He pulled off his own helmet and placed it in the passenger seat. “Debrief me. Start from the beginning.”

_(It wouldn’t occur to him until much later that those had been the same words that his father had often said to him in this cockpit when applying bacta to his wounds, parsecs away from the mark that they had eliminated.)_

And the Mandalorian did. He detailed the hijack of the Imperial transport, the battle-worn village that he had seen, the fight against the pirates that had blown up all of the other Imperial transports, the rescue by TIE fighters, and the infiltration of the Imperial base. The words poured out of him as if he had gone over them many times in his mind. It was the longest that Boba had heard him talk in one sitting. The sterile narration of the events seemed to calm the Mandalorian, until he reached the part where he and the sharpshooter had located an internal Imperial terminal in a mess hall.

“Mayfeld refused to access the terminal in fear of being recognized by his former commanding officer, so I volunteered. I let the terminal scan my face in order to access Moff Gideon’s coordinates,” the Mandalorian said the last part through gritted teeth.

“You adapted to the unexpected change in your plan. That was commendable,” Boba said.

The Mandalorian shook his head jerkily. “I’m forbidden by Creed to show my face.”

Boba had heard of such Mandalorians. They practiced an archaic form of the Creed. One of their beliefs was that they must never take off their helmets in the presence of others. It was a practice mistakenly attributed to Mandalorians at large by outsiders, which was a misconception that Boba had taken full advantage of in his work whenever he had been asked to take off his helmet. These Mandalorians belonged to fringe groups too far removed from mainstream Mandalorian society to have been of interest to Boba.

“Was it necessary for the retrieval of the child?” Boba said.

“Yes,” the Mandalorian said without hesitation.

“Then it would have been dishonorable if you hadn’t done it,” Boba said.

The Mandalorian clenched his hands. The leather of his gloves creaked. “I did it at the cost of giving the Empire a scan of my genetic signature and face.”

A sudden realization struck Boba. “The two pieces of requisite information for posting a bounty with the Bounty Hunter Guild.”

The Mandalorian flinched. It was a full-body twitch that made the aged coil springs in the upholstery groan under him. Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to him, or perhaps hearing Boba say it out loud make the threat seem more real than thinking it in his head. “I can take on Guild hunters. I did it when the kid was with me. They’re not the problem.”

“You’re worried about what Imperial remnants will do with the information,” Boba said.

“They’ll only have to check the database to know that I was the last person to access information on Moff Gideon’s ship before the Imperial base on Morak was destroyed. If they broadcasted the information in their strongholds across the galaxy, my face would be known far and wide. I would be excommunicated and stripped of my armor.” The Mandalorian’s voice trembled, and it was then that Boba realized the Mandalorian was on the verge of a breakdown.

It always started with a chip in the veneer of sanity. Then the chip grew into a cobweb of cracks until the veneer shattered. It could take years, days, or hours. Boba had been witness to it many times before; he had often been the hand that had peeled back the illusion of normalcy and safety that his marks had been living under. Many had folded under pressure. They had begged him for mercy after they had ratted out their closest associates. Business was business, and bounty hunting could be unsavory business when it involved the capture of unsavory characters.

But interrogation was just another tool in his toolkit. He derived no joy from seeing a mind break, especially when it crumbled under its own weight. The Mandalorian should be defeated in combat, not in the confines of his own head.

“I haven’t told you what I am,” Boba said.

“You’ve shown me your chain code.”

“Yes, but I didn’t tell you I share my face and genes with millions of others in the galaxy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m a clone of my father, Jango Fett, who was the template for the clone troopers that served in the Clone Wars,” Boba said. “Men with my face fought on all battlefronts across the Republic. Even now, many in the galaxy would recognize my face as that of their fathers and husbands, on planets that I’ve never visited.”

“I thought the clones have all died out,” the Mandalorian finally said after an extended silence. Boba didn’t know if it was a silence of muted horror, disgust, or pity, and Boba didn’t care either way. He had felt all of those emotions and more for himself at various points of his life. He was over it.

_(What was the purpose of his existence if identical copies of himself have already lived and died millions of times before him?)_

“I don’t have accelerated aging like them,” Boba said. “I understand your fear over your loss of agency over the information obtained by the Empire. I have no doubt that the Empire has retained my father’s genetic information. I have no say over my father’s legacy, for which I bear responsibility by birthright. The Empire is free to produce more clones with my face should they wish. It’s a thought that would haunt me if I let it.”

The Mandalorian cast his visor downwards. 

“You’re a Mandalorian. Your face doesn’t define you. Is it not one of the teachings of the Creed?” Boba said.

“The Creed teaches that ‘to be a Child of Mandalore, you shall bear the Face of Mandalore and forfeit your own,’” the Mandalorian recited. “As a child, I was taught that I must never show my face to another living being, but, recently, I’ve been told that is an incorrect reading of the Creed.”

“The Creed is ancient. Its interpretations are numerous,” Boba said. “I understand that passage to mean the Mandalorian identity supersedes your own identity once you put on the helmet. Historically, Mandalorians have come together in battle regardless of their species or birth planet.”

“Does it mean the helmet… merely symbolizes the taking of the Creed?” the Mandalorian fumbled. He had a level head and a steady hand in a gunfight, but he flailed with the grace of a newborn fathier when it came to philosophical discussions.

Boba couldn’t claim to fare better than him. Boba struggled to formulate an answer that articulated his jumbled thoughts satisfactorily. All he could say was, “No, it’s more than the Creed. It’s everything. It’s up to you to decide what it means.”

The Mandalorian mused. “Mayfeld said something to that effect.”

“I won’t belabor the point. But know that the armor isn’t given lightly and won’t be given up easily either. If Mandalorians come for your armor, you’ll do what you need to do.”

The Mandalorian tilted his head. “Which is what?”

“Kill the ones who come, and the others who follow on their heels,” Boba said.

“I won’t do that.” The Mandalorian looked away and back at the hyperspace lights outside the cockpit.

“Very well. Do as you wish. I can’t compel you. After all, like me, you only have yourself to answer to.” Boba said. He couldn’t read the expression hidden under the Mandalorian’s helmet, but some ideas couldn’t be removed once they had taken roots. Boba hoped the Mandalorian would never have to find out how far he would go to keep his armor.

Because Boba would burn down worlds for his own armor.

He would’ve ordered the execution of the child and the Mandalorian that he had now sworn to protect, if he had thought it was what it would take to retrieve his armor. Wearing the armor was not about upholding the Mandalorian Creed, for which he held little regard. His armor weighed more than the sum of its parts. Out of the millions of clones, he was the only one who bore his father’s armor.

The armor was his heritage. It was proof of his father’s love for him and him alone.

_(He was his father’s son.)_

It was the rock on which he had built his belief that he was his father’s only heir, notwithstanding the existence of the millions of clones that shared his face. He had held onto that belief when he had struggled in the sloshing digestive juice of the Sarlacc, and had felt the acid strip his armor from his body and his skin from his face.

_(He was his father’s son.)_

He clung to it now when he gazed at the curved glass of the cockpit canopy and saw a face that was no longer his father’s.

_(He was forty-two. His father had been in his forties when he’d been struck down by the Jedi. His father had been a handsome man with a weathered face that had been carved by a warrior god. His father had had dark arched brows and a full head of hair. Nothing like this wretched man before him.)_

His father was gone, so were the clones, the Republic, and the Empire. But he remained. He lived.

He was the sole bearer of Jango Fett’s mantle.

He was Boba Fett, his father’s son.


End file.
